New cat comes: Haru Sun

We brought another cat home to keep the old cat company – and she has yet to thank us.
She welcomed the intruder with an arched back and a warning hiss. We tried putting both cats in a bathroom and closing the door. The old cat hissed, “keep your distance, Buster” every time the younger one came anywhere near sniffing distance.
We decided to let them work out their differences. For the next several days she refused to voluntarily spend any time in the same room with him. Mostly she hid under the futon. She meowed pitifully at the door to be let out. When we opened it, she scampered outside away from him.
His first week, the yearling was too busy hiding to notice. The first time he hid, he was in the bathroom, I thought he had escaped. I found him wedged between the tub and the dirty clothes basket staring up at me with woeful eyes. I gathered up the basket to take the clothes to the wash machine. When I came back he was sitting very quietly behind a cat sized screen formed by bath towels hanging on a rack. We took him to the living room and he crawled between the couch and wall.
After spending his first year in a cage with his litter mate, the space in the house overwhelmed the gray tabby.
He had a few months of kittenhood to make up. With a flick of his paw, he sent my computer glasses spinning across the room. He thought they were a great top. I thought the scratches made it hard to see through the lenses. He whacked knick knacks to the floor and skittered after the weighted plastic shell of a ball the exchange student made. He did not know how to jump and land gracefully on all four feet. Like an adolescent teenager after a growth spurt, he ran up to the door frame, leapt as high as he could and smashed into it before sliding down to the floor.
Our cats can have all the quality cat food they want; any of the rodents, birds and insects they can catch … and any licks they can sneak out of ice cream dishes left on the floor after an evening of watching TV. We don’t feed animals from the table or at it. It took him one time to learn that rule. He jumped onto my lap with open claws during a meal, trying to get up and investigate the source of all those wonderful smells. One claw in my upper thigh and he quickly found himself tumbling down to earth.
He never tried to join us for a meal again.
Cat sociology entertains the exchange students. For months the older cat has warmed their laps while they worked at the computer. The old calico cat enjoyed the silence and stillness afforded her while the German student played Internet games. She knew her place and intended to keep it, even if she had to fight for it.
“She acts like my room is her kingdom,” the student came out to tell me.
About that time the intruder dashed down the hallway and wiggled into the barely open bedroom door. “And there he goes to declare himself the king of the mountain,” I said.
The exchange student grinned and followed to see what would happen.
They worked it out. Last week, both cats had claimed his room. The calico won the high ground and curled up on his bed while the tabby had the floor.
Who knows? Given a few months to absorb each other’s scent, they might curl up on the same window sill and soak in the sun together. It could happen and the older cat might even thank me yet for bringing home an intruder to be her friend.